Monday, July 16, 2007

Eras on the verge...

Choose two eras you'd like to have really lived in, as in been an essential part of the core zeitgeist...

Mine are - 1) London in the Swinging 60s with a bi-coastal jump overseas to NY & LA in the early 70s and 2) turn of the century Vienna/Paris. Both of these eras embody a maximum blossoming of pure creativity, thought, and eroticism in otherwise oppressively outmoded, but aesthetically rich, contexts. Both these eras were characterized by an overwhelmingly crackling sense of potential, of great new things to come. Both had appealing surfaces and explosive centers. Loose manners and tight fits. A person could do some visionary work in these "bridge" times. The fact that they mostly yielded smelly, inarticulate hippies and decayed urban environments on the one hand, and two splendid little World Wars on the other, is inconsequential.

Societies need to come undone. How exciting when the first shirt button pops!